The restlessness that he suggests all men feel is due to the confusion engendered when society asks them to act like women while the church asks them to be “Really Nice Guys.” Both have conspired to cheat men of the opportunity to become William Wallace (as portrayed by Mel Gibson in the film, Braveheart), demanding instead that they act like Mother Teresa.

These are all fine qualities, according to Eldredge, but they stifle and constrain men from being what they really are: wild and dangerous. In Wild at Heart, Eldredge argues that men have been emasculated–they’ve been told by the church and society in general that they should be “responsible, sensitive, disciplined, faithful, diligent, dutiful, etc.” (xi). Let’s consider first the shape of Eldredge’s proposal that men are “ Wild at Heart.” In particular, we are concerned that the embrace of Wild at Heart by men in the Reformed tradition is a symptom of a wider phenomenon: an accommodation to broader cultural forces, including an embrace of generic “evangelical” theology and practice that, upon closer inspection, is at odds with the distinctives of biblical, Reformed faith and practice. The Irish musical group U2 articulated this longing well when they crafted the song, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Unfortunately, although Eldredge has asked the right questions, he offers solutions that are sometimes misguided and at other times patently wrong. So it is understandable that Eldrege searches to discover that certain “something” that we’re all longing for.

Wild at Heart is insightful in noting that men live unfulfilled lives, searching to satisfy a vaguely unsettling malaise. Our interest in the Wild at Heart phenomenon was triggered by the attention the book was receiving in dorms on the campus where we teach, as well as in local churches. It has also been the focus of men’s Bible studies both at churches and on college campuses across America. And your community is not alone: the book has sold over a million copies and spawned a cottage industry of retreats, conferences, and spin-off products. Have rifle sales started to soar at the local Wal-Mart? Are friends discussing white water rafting and rock climbing for the first time? Are church council disagreements now settled with fisticuffs instead of votes? If you answered yes to one or more of the previous questions, chances are that the men in your community have just finished reading John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul (Thomas Nelson, 2001).

The wild at heart experience